Compartment door and seal therefor



Jan. 22; 1957 M. PALISCA COMPARTMENT DOOR AND SEAL THEREFOR Filed Feb.26, 1953 I m M M United States Patent G CONWARTMENT DOOR AND SEALTHEREFOR Matthew Palisca, Jamaica, N. Y.

Application February 26, 1953, Serial No. 338,989

3 Claims. (Cl. 20--69) (Granted under Title 35, U. S. Code (1952), see.266) The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by orfor the Government of the United States of America for governmentalpurposes without the payment of any royalties thereon or therefor.

My invention relates in general to compartment doors and seals therefor.it relates more in particular to fluidtight compartment doors of thegeneral type utilized in many environments on naval craft to sealcompartments to which access is required periodically.

In naval craft there are many compartment doors which are required to bewater-, gas-, airand/or fumetight, such as doors on elevators onairplane carriers, compartments containing bombs, torpedoes, water-tightcompartments which prevent complete flooding of a ships hull when it isdamaged below the water line, and the like. Such doors may be relativelyvery large a in the case of elevators on aircraft carriers, or merelylarge enough to permit access of personnel. They may have various shapesand they are mounted for closing in various ways as, for example, onhinges, or they may be slid into place and closed in still other ways.Almost without exception they are provided with a firmly attached, solidsealing member, and have some means for drawing them up tightly againstsuch sealing member. Because of warp-age, distortion, normal structuralvariations and deviations, and for various other reasons the sealing ofdoors such as those identified has not been satisfactory. Extensivemanipulation, reshaping, filing, hammering and the like are necessaryboth in original construction work and when repair is made in order toobtain a tight seal. Not only does this represent an excessive costfactor, but time and elfectivity of seal are also factors.

The principal object of my invention is the provision of a fluid-tightcompartment door by means Otf which a good seal may be :obtainedregardless of minor distortions, warpings, and the like of the door ordoor frame members.

Another object is the provision of a seal tor such doors whichautomatically adjusts itself to minor irregularities of construction.

Still another object is the provision of a seal for compartment doorswhich is readily replaced, and in which there is no necessity to reshapeor modify the door or door frame structure at the time of suchreplacement.

A still further object is the provision of animproved compartment doorseal which requires only relatively minor changes in conventional doorconstruction and can be used with present day standard door-mounting anddoor-tightening mechanisms.

Other specific objects and features of my invention will be apparentfrom a consideration of the following detailed description taken withthe accompanying drawings, wherein:

Fig. l is a plan elevational view of a conventional type of doorconstrue-ted in accordance with my invention, the door being either onewhich is generally horizontal or 2 generally vertical, depending uponthe compartment which it seals;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged fragmentary sectional view taken on the line 2-2of Fig. 1 looking in the direction of the arrows, this figure showingthe seal as it appears after the door is partially tightened against thecoaming;

Fig. 3 shows the seal before it is tightened against the coaming, andwith the coaming slightly mis-aligned with respect to the seal;

Fig. 4 is a fragmentary sectional view of a portion of Fig. 2 showingthe condition of the seal after the door has been drawn tightly againstthe coaming when slightly out of line;

Fig. 5 is a slightly reduced elevational view partly broken away,showing the under side of the door and illustrating the manner in whichthe seal is placed in position;

Fig. 6 is similar to Fig. 5, but showing a modified form of seal;

Fig. 7 shows the manner in which the seal is arranged if a door withsquare corners is used; and

Fig. 8 is a similar view showing a conventional arrangement for a roundcompartment door.

In disclosing my invention, particularly the first-described embodimentshown in Figs. 1 through 5, I have shown a general arrangement, partlyschematic, common to compartment doors on naval craft. It will beunderstood that this showing is illustrative, as any usual door mountingand closing mechanism can be employed. The door shown in these figureswill close any usual compartment in which a frame 10 forms a dooropening 11 around which the usual coaming 12 is placed. A generallysquare door 13 with rounded corners is mounted one pair of hinges 14,and a plurality of tightening dogs 16 carried by the frame 10 areadapted for engagement against the door in a conventional manner to drawit toward the coaming.

Opposite the coaming 12, the door is provided with a channel 17 shapedto loosely retain an elongated, generally cylindrical body '18. Thechannel may be formed in various ways, but as shown is formed by aperipheral flange 19 on the panel forming the door, and a spacedprojection 21 welded to the under side of such panel. The flange 19 andprojection 21 slope toward each other as shown in the drawings, and thecylindrical body 18 may be forced into the channel and loosely retainedtherein in the intended manner, but functionally equivalent structuresmay be used.

The cylindrical body 18 is preferably formed of a good grade ofsemi-soft to soft vulcanized rubber treated to reduce its tendency todeteriorate by oxidation and the like, but it may be formed of anysuitable resilient material having the desired rubber-like properties.In general a tube is preferred to a solid cylindrical body, and ingeneral the material itself must be somewhat more flexible, e. g., be ofsofter rubber, if the member 18 is a solid cylinder. The diameter shouldvary somewhat with the size of door and sealing action required, and thewall thickness generally is greater than normally found in standardrubber tubing of commerce. 'In sea ing a four by six foot door,for'exa-mple, I have found that the cylindrical body preferably shouldbe a tube about inch to 1 inch in diameter and with the wan thickness ofto @5 inch, depending on pressures involved. A standard wall thicknessof A inch may be adopted in most instances.

The manner in which the cylindrical sealing member functions may benoted by referring to Figs. 3 and 4. In Fig. 3 the coaming 12 has notengaged the cylindrical member and is slightly mis-aligned with respectto it. In Fig. 4, however, the engagement has been completed;

and this slight this-alignment such as encountered in standard practicedoes not prevent an adequate seal. Comparison may be made with theillustration shown in Fig. 2. This automatic compensation isparticularly important at the hinge side of a door where there is-atendency for the coaming to rub against the seal as the door is closed.With a seal in the form of a loose cylindrical body such as I employ,there is an automatic compensation for the rubbing action; and eventhough the engagement with the coaming is not in the same place on eachclosing of the door, the resulting functional adj-ustment still producesa tight seal. This same type of adjustment occurs entirely around thedoor, regard-less of .what may cause the mis-alignment.

There is still another advantage of the loosely supported cylindricalseal such a I employ, 'as will be seen particularly by referring to Fig.5. The member 18 is out long enough so that .when placed in position itsends while in place on the door, and the advantages of my arrangementare obvious by comparison.

In Fig. 6 I disclose *a-modification in which the cylindrical sealingmember 18 is produced in the form of a closed loop. Such a seal may beformed simply by vulcanizing the two ends of a suitable tube togetherbefore installation, either at the factory or in a naval repair facilitymaintained for the purpose. In this form of the invention, thecylindrical body 18 is made long enough to exactly fit the channel inwhich it is to be placed. against the projection 21, but should be looseenough so that it can have free adjustment movement in the intendedmanner in the channel 17. In general, this type of closed loop is notrequired, but there are occasional circumstances where its use isindicated.

Figs. 7 and 8 employ the same reference numbers used in Fig. 1 and showthe manner of forming the seal when It should not be small enough topull tightly completion of the required retaining channel; or stillother simple conversion expedients may be used. My invention isconcerned only with the resulting functional structure, as particularlydefined in the claims.

I claim:

1. A fiuid-tight compartment door assembly comprising; means defining adoor opening; a coarning framing the opening in said means; a door forsealing the opening by engaging said coaming, said door including a bodyportion, a continuous flange of substantially constant width projectingfrom one surface of said body portion and forming a first closed loop,the inner surface of said flange being fiat in cross section and slopingslightly in toward the center of said body portion, the inside dimensions of the first closed loop measured at the rim of said flange beingbigger than the outside dimensions of said coaming, a continuousprojection of substantially the same width as said flange projectingfrom the one surface of said body portion within the area enclosed bysaid flange and forming a second closed loop spaced by a substantiallyconstant, distance from said flange, the outer surface of saidprojection being flat in cross section and sloping slightly out towardsaid flange, the outside dimensions of the second closed loop measuredat the rim of said projection being smaller than the inside dimensionsof said coaming by substantially the same amount that the insidedimensions of the first closed loop measured 4 at the rim of said flangeis bigger than the outside dimensions of said coaming, said flange andsaid projection and the body portion of said door included there betweendefining a channel, the thickness of said coaming 'being a minorfraction of the distance between the rims of saidflange and saidprojection, a seal in the form of a cylindrical resilient readilydeformable member disposed in the channel and is of such length that itextends throughout the channel forming a loop, the diameter of said sealbein'g'such that when not compressed it makes substantially only linecontact with said flange perfectly square and round doors, respectively,are em I show that any usual shape of door may employ the seal of myinvention, and of course the abutting ends may be vulcanized together asshown in Fig. 6 regardless of the shape involved.

Those skilled in the art will understand that the specific door andchannel construction shown in the drawings is illustrative. Generally itis a form which is used in new door construction. Since my invention isadapted to be applied to all existing doors, however, with no requiredchange except for the provision of a channel for loosely retaining asuitable cylindrical; body such as described, the actual manner ofproducing the channel will be determined by the conditions encountered.For example, the channel may be separately formed of a single piece andattached to an existingdoor by welding or the like; or part of a doorstructure may be used as one side of a channel and a separate stripattached tor and said projection and said body portion, the diameter ofsaid seal being somewhat bigger than the gap between the rim of saidflange and the rim of said projection whereby said seal is retainedloosely in the channel, whereby said compartment door assembly isadapted to eifect a fluid-tight seal regardless of minor distortions,warpings, misalignment or the like in said door assembly.

2. A door-as defined in claim 1 in which said seal is formed of softrubber that is free of voids.

-3. A door as defined in claim 1 in which said seal is in the form of atubular resilient member.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Re.22,013 Lambert Feb. 3, 1942 2,149,684' MacGregor Mar. 7, 1939 2,156,635Mascuch et a1. May 2, 1939 2,236,315 Gray Mar. 25, 1941 2,257,776 KingOct. 7, 1941 2,421,400 Young June 3, 1947 2,440,764 Wilson May 4, 1948 YFOREIGN PATENTS 6,274 Germany 1880 793,836 France Nov. 23, 1935 855,671France Feb. 19, 1940

